Salt Water
by IDontReallyWriteAnymore
Summary: I say that InuYasha doesn’t understand me, but sometimes, I think that he is the only one who can understand. Because he is feeling exactly how I am right now. Alone.[One Shot]


**Salt Water**

_One-Shot_

_(Kagome's POV)_

Someone once told me that salt water is healing. I didn't quite understand what they meant when they said it because at the time, I was a six year old little girl with a one inch incision on her foot from an angry crab, crying hysterically and trying to find a way to make the pain in my foot go away. Then, when I went into the ocean it hurt worse. I think that at the time I was thinking, if it's supposed to make me better, then why does it hurt so badly?

But now, when I'm standing at the same shoreline ten years later, I think I understand better. I realize now that sometimes, recovering from something can actually hurt more than suffering from it in the first place. How lovely would it be if we could just forget when something bad happened to us? I wish that I could forget about everything too sometimes. Sometimes, I think back to my journeys in the Sengoku Jidai and smile, my eyes brimming with happy tears. I think of all the people I have helped, all the friends I have made, all the people I have loved.

But sometimes - sometimes I feel like all of the time I spent there was a waste. It hurts to remember the people that I've tried to help, but only failed and watched them die. It hurts to know that as much as I love Sango, Miroku, and Shippou- Nothing I can do will bring back Sango's family, nothing will make Shippou's parents live again, nothing I can do will keep Miroku from his untimely death. And I find myself feeling so helpless. Like, all I can do is watch them suffer.

I cry a lot about it don't you know? I think that maybe I would have been better off the way I was before. If only I hadn't been the re-incarnation of some priestess who died five hundred years ago, if only Buyo hadn't wandered into the well house. Then I wouldn't be feeling the pain I do, I wouldn't cry the tears I cried. I wouldn't have lost to the loves I've loved.

Love. Ah, what things that word brings to mind.

I have a secret. You're curious aren't you? I bet you want to know all about how I've loved, who I've loved. I'll tell you then. I met him a year ago. A year ago _exactly._ I hated him at first though. But part of me thinks that I didn't really hate him. I think I resented him. I wanted him to approve of me, to like me too! But all he did was insult me. He hated me, but for a different reason. It's because I looked like Kikyo. But unlike me, he _loved _her. He really, sincerely loved her. Oh gods it hurts how much he loves her. And she loved him as well. That story didn't have a happy ending, as you know. But when he was with her, I think he was the happiest man alive. Okay, I'll admit, maybe Inu Yasha is really more of an adolescent than a man.

But I love him. I love him unlike any other person I have loved. I love my family, my friends, and even my gossiping girlfriends from high school. I love them too. But when I am with him, it's not the same as when I am with the others. I feel so light and happy an strong. He makes me invincible.

But he makes me fragile too. When I see him with Kikyo, it's like he took his claws and ripped the beating organ out of my chest himself. It really hurts that bad. He doesn't understand though. As much as I hate him - and Kikyo too!- for it, I don't think he can know how much it breaks me to see him with her. When he holds her, when he kisses her, when he is soft and gentle and romantic- not the Inu Yasha I know- I can't help but feel …

Jealous.

And I feel hate. I feel darkness, envy, hatred, cruelty, anger, pain. All of those things. And it hurts me so much. Can't he see that she is just a piece of earth, molded into his Kikyo's shape and form? Why doesn't he get it? Can't he see that I can love him so much more than she will ever be able to ever again? No. He can't see it. He's too blinded by her. He is stuck in the past, stuck with what he once had, too full of regret with what _could have been_ to look forward to see what is now. He doesn't see me. When she is near, I am as invisible as I was when she kissed him.

But that's the funny thing. Eventually, he noticed me. After they kissed and she was about to take him to hell with her, I screamed and screamed. I thrashed and kicked and screamed my lungs out. I would have kept screaming too. I would do it until my throat began to sore and rupture, until I couldn't speak, or breathe. Until I was sure that he would never come back to me. But I didn't have to go that far, of course. He snapped out of it and rescued me, like he always does. And I find myself hoping that maybe that's what he'll do now. Maybe someday he will realize that he loves me, that I love him. Maybe I can be the wife he never had, give him the life he has always wanted.

I say that he doesn't understand me, but sometimes, I think that he is the only one who _can _understand. Because he is feeling exactly how I am right now.

Alone.

And as much as I wish I could, I can't hate him for it because I know how much it hurts to love someone that seems like they don't care about you. I feel for him, and feel because of him. I get mad at him, I am sad because of him, but above all, I love him. And even though we go through hard times, those good memories of him- when he is sweet and caring.- will always hold me. I will always come back to him eventually, no matter how hard he kicks and screams.

But for now ...

I drop the small hand bag I am carrying, my thin blouse and short khaki shorts being knocked this way or another by the wind as I run across the sand, and plunge head first into the sea. I stay under as long as I can hold my breath for and erupt from the surface, taking in a deep breath of air and lying down on my back to float along the ocean, and let the waves cradle me, rock me, carry me to wherever they will.

Someone once told me that salt water is healing and know I think I know what they meant. They meant that sometimes, life hurts, and when you do find help for it, find a way for you to mend your heart, and put together all the little shards and broken pieces of your heart, or help someone collect theirs, it hurts. It hurts to have to look back and live with things that have happened to you. It hurts to have to remember, to have to cope and deal with it. But in the end, if you carry yourself through, things will turn out okay. Someday you'll smile again, and someday you'll cry again. But it's those little things that make you alive. Those little salt water droplets that come from our eyes help us. Those tears I have cried have helped me. And I have cried so many.

So now I drift through the water, salt water everywhere, knowing that this water healed the cut on my foot ten years ago, and hoping that maybe it will help heal the wounds on my heart as well.

Someone once told me that salt water is healing.

I think they were right.

**_Author's Notes_**

A little one shot for you guys. I really like this one! Its kind of sad and kind of happy, but pretty nice for what it is. Took me forty five minutes. Yup, but I am proud. Its actually pretty good for what it is. Maybe it's not brilliant, but there is something endearing about it. I like it. One shots kick ass. Woot! _Reviewmeplease!_

Inu Kun-


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